Sitting through an attempted-murder-by-PowerPoint design review today, one of the presenters questioned whether or not some of his slides had animation builds on them or not. This most often resulted in him going forward a slide, apologizing, then backing up to where he wanted to be. It occurred to me that there is an easy way to avoid this.
If you have a slide that has animation builds in it, simply place a small graphic somewhere on the slide that lets you know there is a build coming. If you have multiple builds, make sure the graphic stays on-screen until the last build for that slide is complete. That way you know that the next click of the mouse will take you to the next slide.
Interestingly, I’ve been guilty of this in the past as well but never came up with this idea based on my own presentations. Something about being able to observe from the outside, without the pressure of performance, makes it easier to see the things that can be improved. This is a good reason for you to conduct your own personal debriefing after briefings or other “performances”.
no straight lines 